Tuesday, May 7, 2013

Amazons and Scalping Blades, Campaign News

And now the News...

Our new Decade-King continues to
stubbornly stay on the lips of Kezmarokis. Seeking to overturn five
centuries of cherished tradition of not having to see or hear from
the monarch more than the usual “touch the jewels and wave”
appearances of the great festivals, the ceremonial monarch announced
to great shock that he would deliver a “rousing bit of oratory”
from the organic-machine-themed Yakquirby Balcony on Sunlorday.

In other news, noting the considerable
erosion and water damage to the external walls of the palace, the
Autarchs have (finally after decades) released funding for
much needed structural work on the teetering pile. A massive cocoon
of scaffolding went up around the exterior immediately, much to the
praise of local citizenry.

The Amazons are celebrating again
their biennial Ebon Festival of the Pearls on their distant isle
near the resting point of the Sun Lord's daily ride. The festival
marks both the climax of the black pearl harvest from the
swamp-polyps and the victory of that muscle-bounded race of maidens
against the invading forces of the Overkingdom in the Twicefold Battle of Vague
Suggestiveness now some 112 years ago. It is said that the high-point of the
festivities is the public bathing and drinking by their much-feared,
rubenesque queen of the blood of 12 male lovers.

And in the identified magic items
department...

The Four Brother-Blades of the
Evening Red

In the darkness that fell after the
last Latter-State Hyperboran necromancer-king was hung with the guts
of the last ur-bureaucrat--a time so dark that the chatiness and love
of written language so dear to our age was reduced to flashes of the
sordid art of epic poetry—four brother hero-champions of the Muhtl
people arose. These brothers, though noted for their bloodlust revels
and vicious scalping, were unswervingly loyal to each other and when
the vicious Muhtl were finally put down by the Kaftor matriarchs—and
their own deaths by castration at hand—through dark oaths had their
respective souls transferred in part to their beloved blades.

If all four blades are wielded in
battle by a single party, each sword becomes +2 to hit and damage. On
a natural 20, the blade lands a near scalping blow to a humanoid
causing an additional d6 bleeding damage. Striking the four blades
together while chanting “hrom, hrom, hrom” (the Muhtl word for
“thunder”) will produce Call Lightning once per day at the level
of the strongest wielder. All magical powers of the swords are only
functional when all four swords are in use.

Individually each blade exhibits a
bare, but strongly-willful sentience (INT 5, EGO 15). When touched
the sword emanates a tremendous—and malign—sense of potency, a
potential warning that the blades seek to turn the wielder into a
debased and violent existence of wanton evil. (When wielding the
sword, if erections last for four or more hours, call a cleric.)